True Crime

by Michael Mewshaw

Tom Heller is a true-crime writer. His specialty: family murders. When his own father – poor, alcoholic, and a source of unresolved guilt and shame to his successful son - is brutally slain in his rundown Maryland home, Tom returns to make his own investigation. Soon there are two more victims: the father and son of Tom’s college girlfriend are found murdered on their exclusive estate. Tom sees almost immediately what the police can’t: the murders are linked. And it is this link that will carry Tom twenty years into his past to come face to face with the emotional traumas he has run from - his rivalry with his brother whose help he now needs, the calculated cynicism of his own career, and the impossible love of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks for a rich and privileged woman. Dangerous passions are reignited, and as Tom replays his doomed romance he himself becomes a suspect in murder.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Michael Mewshaw is an American author of 11 novels and 8 books of nonfiction, and works frequently as a travel writer, investigative reporter, book reviewer, and tennis reporter. His novel Year of the Gun was made into a film of the same name by John Frankenheimer in 1991. He is married with two sons.

Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio's longtime "voice of books," has called him "the best novelist in America that nobody knows."

Reviews

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Heller is a true-crime writer. His specialty: family murders. When his own father – poor, alcoholic, and a source of unresolved guilt and shame to his successful son - is brutally slain in his rundown Maryland home, Tom returns to make his own investigation. Soon there are two more victims: the father and son of Tom’s college girlfriend are found murdered on their exclusive estate. Tom sees almost immediately what the police can’t: the murders are linked. And it is this link that will carry Tom twenty years into his past to come face to face with the emotional traumas he has run from - his rivalry with his brother whose help he now needs, the calculated cynicism of his own career, and the impossible love of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks for a rich and privileged woman. Dangerous passions are reignited, and as Tom replays his doomed romance he himself becomes a suspect in murder.

Again, Mewshaw goes outside the boundaries of "known" Washington and lets us into a family dynamic played out in the blue collared suburbs. Excellent book.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Tom Heller, true crime author
SETTING: Washington, DC, area
RATING: 3.75
WHY: Tom Heller is a very successful author of true crime novels who is living in Italy with his wife and two sons. When he gets word that his father has been hurt, he returns to the US. When his father (who was an abusive alcoholic) dies, Tom partners with his brother to find the killer. The investigation soon expands to cover the murder of his college lover's father and son. They all seem to be connected somehow to Tom. The relationships are complicated. I found the writing excellent, but Mewshaw didn't sustain it until the conclusion. Heller at times engaged in inconsistent behavior, and the resolution didn't really add up for me.

[Shandi Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great novel! It was a little slow reading at first but it caught my attention right off the hop. The more I read, the more I couldn't stop. I was so enthralled with the book, I never would have guessed the ending.goes to show how much you should trust your family and spend time with them. Loved this book!